‘SLAP me make I get money o, ye o, gba mi leti ki
ndolowo’ was a song rendered by the Afrobeat legend, the late Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti, but for 14-year-old Iyanuoluwa Dahunsi, a Senior Secondary
School 2 student of Bishop Philips Academy, Ibadan, Oyo State, the slap she
received has resulted in the loss of her right, rather than make her rich.
Anyone who sees the young girl would place his hands
on his heart and sigh in pity. The teenager’s right eye is almost dropping out
of the socket and looks like a half-cooked egg yolk-like substance, with the
pupil like a small clog of soot on an egg yolk.
Before January 29, 2015, the girl’s eyes could be said
to be perfect, going by the picture she took with her friends the same month
when the school celebrated its 50th anniversary. But the tide changed against
Iyanu and it seems she has lost an eye.
Sunday Tribune gathered that the event that led to the
change in Iyanu’s life started when she was allegedly slapped by one Mrs Funke
Fashina, said to be the secretary to the principal of the school. And what was
her offence? The woman reportedly saw her and two other girls emerging from an
unused room within the school building and enquired to know what they were
doing there. Before they could reply, she landed a slap on Iyanu’s face first,
and subsequently others.
The girl’s right eye was said to have developed a
problem and had got worse, with the University College Hospital, Ibadan (UCH),
saying that she would require a surgery. Iyanu told Sunday Tribune that she
could no longer see with the right eye.
Narrating her experience to Sunday Tribune, Iyanu
said: “On Thursday, January 29, students were having an Agriculture class, so
those of us offering Food and Nutrition left the class and three of us went to
stay in one of the rooms in the building.
“We saw our teacher from the window of the room so we
wanted to step out to go and meet her. As we were about to leave the room, we
saw the secretary to the Principal, Mrs Funke Fasina. She asked us what we were
doing in that room but before we could explain, she slapped us one after the
other.
“By the time I got home, my left eye had turned red
and painful. I told my mother what happened but she dismissed me, saying that I
would not have been slapped if I didn’t do something wrong. On Monday February
9, my mother followed me to school and the principal asked my mother to take me
to the hospital.
“We went to Catholic Hospital, Eleta, Ibadan and we
were told to do the scan of the eye. By then, my eye had become bulgy and I was
no longer seeing clearly. We went to St. Gregory’s Ultrasound Centre, Yemetu.
From there, we went to the University College Hospital, Ibadan and I was told
that I would undergo surgery. We were told to bring N300,000 as deposit. My
parents have reported the case at the police station in Alakia Adelubi and the
woman admitted that she slapped me.”
Iyanuoluwa said before the slap, she never had any
pain or itch in her eye, so the report that she had a problem with her eye does
not hold water. “Now I can no longer see with my right eye and I am going
through a lot of pains,” she stated.
Iyanu’s mother, Mrs Damilola Dahunsi, corroborated her
daughter’s narration, saying that she didn’t take the incident serious
initially. “To my surprise, the eye started swelling up. I followed my daughter
to school on Monday, February 9 and the principal was shocked to see the eye.
“We went to Mrs Fashina and I begged her to give us an
antidote if she used a charm on my daughter but she denied using charm to slap
my daughter. My daughter never had any eye problem since she was born.
“We took Iyanuoluwa to UCH and we were told that she
would go through surgery. We did CT scan at UCH but the result was cornered and
we never saw it. We were told to go home when we could not pay the N300,000 we
were asked to deposit.
“Unfortunately, the woman who slapped my daughter
refused to do anything financially and my brother who went to the Commissioner
for Education was told that efforts were on to go round schools for students to
contribute money towards my daughter’s treatment.”
Sunkanmi Ojewumi, Iyanu’s uncle, decried the attitude
of a staff of UCH (names withheld), whom he said tried to frustrate all their
efforts because she is Mrs Fashina’s in-law. “We didn’t get the result of the
test carried out in UCH and the police at Alakia-Adelubi did not get it also.
To our surprise, the result found its way to TESCOM where the Permanent
Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Mr. Giwa, told me he had seen the
result and it indicated that the girl might have had underlying problems that
resulted in the eye problem.
“He said the only way they could help was to go round
schools and seek donations from students, which TESCOM would add to. It was
claimed that she had a tumor in the eye. But we will not accept the result
because the girl never had eye problem.
“We appeal to the government to come to the girl’s
aid. We don’t have any money and the father’s shop at Oki area of Ibadan was
razed recently and he lost goods worth millions of naira. The mother sells
provisions.”
Sunday Tribune gathered that the case was eventually
transferred to the Department of Criminal Investigation, Iyaganku and was
arraigned to court on Monday, March 9 for wounding. This was confirmed by the
police’s spokesperson in Oyo State, DSP Adekunle Ajisebutu.
The magistrate who presided over the case granted the
accused bail in the sum of N100,000 or surety in like sum as well as Levels 15
and 17 civil servants who would stand as sureties for her. The accused person,
who could not fulfil the bail condition, was remanded in Agodi Prisons until
Thursday March 12, when the bail conditions were reportedly perfected.
In a telephone interview, the Commissioner of
Education, Prof Solomon Oladapo Olaniyonu, in response Sunday Tribune’s
inquiries, said that it was a case involving two parties and the case has been
charged to court. “They have taken the case to court and we have already
suspended the lady. On the treatment, some humanitarian persons have been
gathering money and I saw the Permanent Secretary this morning and he told me
that the deposit had been gathered. The student is in UCH for treatment.”
On her part, the principal of the school, Mrs Iyabo
Modupeola Ladepo, refused to make any comment, saying “We are not allowed to
speak with the media as civil servants.”
The Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (CMAC), UCH,
Dr Adefemi Afolabi, while speaking with Sunday Tribune, said that the hospital
did not usually turn back patients in need of emergency surgery. “When a
patient needs surgery and it is not an emergency, there are many patients
competing for the facilities we have in UCH. So, it will be a matter of the
order in which the patients come, or their condition.
“The doctors managing the patient will also consider
whether they have space in the theatre and ward where the patient will be
admitted. You can’t take a patient to a ward where she catches an infection
after a successful surgery, so all these are put into consideration when
slating a patient for surgery,” the CMAC stated.
He promised that Iyanu would be seen by the doctors
and it would be decided when they would admit her and carry out the surgery. On
the result of the CT scan that the family desired to see, Dr Afolabi said that
they could apply to the hospital for the medical report of the patient which
would contain the summary of the CT scan result.
Source:Tribune
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